Taylor Swift, Ashley Judd Among Time’s 2017 Person of the Year Picks

Taylor Swift and Ashley Judd are two of the prominent faces Time magazine included among the Silence Breakers when the magazine announced its pick for Time's coveted 2017 Person of the Year honor on Wednesday morning (Dec. 6).

The Silence Breakers are a group of women who came forward publicly with their stories of sexual assault and sexual harassment, setting off the #MeToo movement that has swept America in recent weeks and seen sweeping changes in the way Americans look at issues around sexual misconduct.

Swift was at the center of a high-profile court case in 2017 against former radio personality David Mueller, who she accused of groping her during a meet-and-greet at a concert. In August a jury decided that case in Swift's favor, awarding her a symbolic settlement of one dollar -- all that she had asked for, as her reasons for pursuing the matter were simply to bring more light to the subject.

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Judd the very first woman with name recognition to come forward and name Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein in regard to sexual assault, and his very public fall from grace served as the catalyst for the #MeToo movement, which has since toppled a wide array of powerful executives, actors and politicians.

Time's editor-in-chief, Edward Felsenthal, revealed the cover of the Person of the Year issue during an appearance on the Today show Wednesday morning (Dec. 6) The cover features Swift, Judd, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler and another woman whose face is obscured, who is intended to represent women who haven't come forward with their own stories yet.

"This is the fastest-moving social change we've seen in decades, and it began with individual acts of courage by hundreds of women, and some men, who came forward to tell their own stories of sexual harassment and assault," Felsenthal says. "The image you see partially on the cover is of a woman we talked to, a hospital worker in the middle of the country who shared her story with us and some others but doesn't feel like she can come forward without threatening her livelihood."

According to Time, President Trump was their runner-up for Person of the Year, while Chinese President Xi Jinping was third on the list. The short list of candidates included Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the Dreamers, Colin Kaepernick, Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, special prosecutor Robert Mueller and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.